Saturday, February 9th, 2019, 9 AM - 4 PM

Join us for an all-day conference featuring experienced speakers and interactive workshops to provide both educators, community members, activists and students with tools and resources for enhancing peace, understanding, and communication in their schools and daily lives.

Topic strands include: Mindfulness, Peace Through Expression, Elementary Education and Building Bridges in the Community

Keynote Speaker: LAUREN MARKHAM, Community School Program Manager, Oakland International High School and Author of The Faraway Brothers (2017)​Markham has worked in a variety of positions over the past decade in support of refugees, immigrants and vulnerable youth, with a focus on the intersection between education and migration. She has served as a caseworker and a resettlement capacity worker for the International Rescue Committee in Oakland, the Senior Programs Coordinator for Refugee Transitions and as a consultant for the Oakland Unified School District's Refugee & Asylee Student Assistance Program. Having worked with youth and families in Boston, Vermont, San Francisco, Oakland, El Salvador and Uganda, Lauren speaks Spanish, French and a fair amount of Luganda.

Her book, The Faraway Brothers, Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life, is based on the true story of a set of twins escaping poverty and gang violence in El Salvador. They grew up in a rural community in the wake of a civil war and eventually made their way through Mexico and across the Rio Grande to stay with an estranged brother in Oakland. Markham met them at the high school where she works as a refugee coordinator and through this book offers an unforgettable testament to the migrant experience.

JG LarochetteFounder and Director of Mindful Life Project, Richmond California​​Mindfulness in EducationMindful Life Project serves over 10,000 underserved Contra Costa students in 23 partner schools. We provide two school direct service mindfulness based social emotional learning programs as well as highly regarded mindful educator trainings. This session would provide participants an understanding of our work and how mindfulness can improve both psychological and physiological well-being that create inner peace and empowerment that transform schools to be extremely healthy and compassionate learning environments. Attendees will leave inspired to bring mindfulness into their schools! http://www.mindfullifeproject.org/

About the Presenter:In the creating Mindful Life Project Larochette was a PlayWorks Site Coordinator, Classroom Teacher at Coronado Elementary in Richmond for seven years, community advocate/organizer, mentor, and coach. All of these experiences with the young people in Richmond and Oakland inspired and taught him the deepest lessons of my life which then in turn created Mindful Life Project. He found the need to bring mindfulness based social emotional learning to our youth and educators so to create the healthiest and most empowering educational ecosystems in communities that are most effected by systems of oppression and institutionalized racism.

Sharat G. LinCommunity Activist, Educator, Artist, Research Fellow @ San Jose Peace and Justice CenterCo-Presenter: Khalilah Ramirez​Embracing Social Justice Through the Dance of PeaceDance and movement arts provide a forum through which to engage audiences in discussions about social justice and peace. This is particularly important when those general audiences may not otherwise be receptive, or in contexts where talks or discussions may seem out of place. The Dance of Peace is one example of an interpretive dance form performed to music and lyrics that may carry messages of social justice. This workshop will inform, demonstrate, and engage attendees in performing interpretive dance and illustrate the various ways of connecting dance to social justice narratives.

About the presenters:Sharat Lin and Khalilah Ramirez are both educators, teachers and lecturers with many years of experience doing presentations to audiences of all ages. https://sanjosepeace.org/

Holly SheehanConsultant/School Design Coach: Big Picture Learning Native American IntiativeCo-Presenter: Armando Ortiz​Student Interest-Driven Culture-Based Education Projects: What Are They And How Can We Support Them?Discover how embedding CBE into student-interest driven learning plans allow AIAN students to authentically engage in culturally relevant learning. Indian Education scholars and Native communities agree that Culture-Based Education (CBE), a pedagogy that centers culture and language learning, is a current best practice for improving success outcomes for American Indian and Alaska Native students. Meeting the unique cultural and linguistic needs of our American Indian, Alaska Native, and First Nations students is our treaty obligation and honoring the treaties is essential to peace and justice.

About the presenter:Sheehan recently presented this workshop at the Teachers for Social Justice conference in San Francisco as well as at the Get Woke Stay Woke conference at Chabot Community College. www.bigpicture.org/

Ishaq PathanDeputy Director of Islamic Networks Group​Creating Inclusive ClassroomsThis session will present ideas for creating inclusive classrooms through our INGYouth program which proactively addresses religious based bullying by providing Muslim teens with the skills and tools they need to counter bigotry and respond knowledgeably to challenging questions and negative stereotyping not only from their peers but also from teachers, school staff, and administrators. Participants will have the opportunity to hear reflections from an INGYouth Speaker as well as a basic presentation about Muslims done by them. ​ing.org/

About the Presenter:Ishaq Pathan is the Deputy Director of the Islamic Networks Group, a non-profit organization with affiliates and partners around the country that are pursuing peace and countering all forms of bigotry through education and interfaith engagement while working within the framework of the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom and pluralism. Ishaq earned his B.A. from Hamilton College with a major in Anthropology and minors in Education and Middle Eastern & Islamic World Studies. Ishaq has conducted dozens of youth training seminars, and spoken to thousands of students on topics relating to Islam and Muslims. He also holds a certificate in nonprofit leadership from the College of San Mateo and Center for Excellence in Nonprofits.

Kaleo and Elise Ching​Adjunct Professor @ Sofia University, Palo Alto; John F. Kennedy University Arts and Consciousness Program​​​Qigong for Peace and HealingWe will be teaching the participants Qigong movement and self-help acupressure points to release stress, build energy reserves and immune system, and harmonize body, mind, and spirit. They will also experience Qigong meditation/visualization for inner peace. The techniques are simple but profound. Because we believe that peace begins in oneʻs own heart, the class will be geared toward the participants’ own benefit, but we hope they will be inspired to introduce some of these techniques and information to students in their classrooms and to share them with other educators as well.

About the Presenters: Elise and Kaleo Ching co-taught at John F Kennedy University for 25 years. Now they are adjunct professors at Sofia University; teach at CURA (carnales unidos reformando adictos), a drug treatment facility in Fremont; and offer classes locally at community, spiritual, and retreat centers. Kaleo has a private Hawaiian massage, Acupressure, Hypnotherapy practice. They have written a number of books on Qi and Creativity.kaleoching.com/

Building Intentional Communities Designing a strong program is a complicated and nuanced art—one that requires cultural awareness, knowledge of social justice principles, and the practice of deep democracy. Given the right social conditions and held to high expectations, every young person has the opportunity to flourish. This session will support staff to define collective values, create a cohesive team unified in vision, behavior management strategies, and facilitation techniques.

About the Presenter:In her 20 years working with young people, Aminta Steinbach has been a Program Coordinator, Youth Leadership Instructor and Program Director. Aminta majored in Community Studies, has studied Recreational Program Design and is a Certified Self Defense Instructor. Her areas of expertise as a capacity builder include Cultural Competency, Health and Safety Awareness and Community Building. Aminta is an enthusiastic cheerleader for her coaching clients, listens attentively, pays attention to details and acts as a compassionate guide through even the most difficult transitions. Aminta has a black belt in Kung Fu, and when not working you can usually find her kicking and punching her way to a more peaceful world.​www.bethechangeconsulting.com/

Participants interested in sustainable change can employ system thinking to see how a system functions as a whole, suggesting that everyone in a system “shares responsibility for the problems generated by the system” (Senge). Systems thinking is a conceptual framework that surfaces patterns and clarifies pathways to effectively change the system. There remains a blind spot in that change agents do not necessarily know what they don’t know when they claim to be looking for solutions. This session will provide a framework to better understand the ways in which change at one level can lead to a change at another level.

In this session, participants will examine personal pedagogy in light of students’ social location, define a personal/professional goal, articulate the purpose and goal(s) of equity pedagogy, and critically explore what is a diverse, inclusive, and culturally competent classroom? ​

​About the Presenter:Dr. Lizette Ortega Dolan is a first-generation Latin@ who earned her B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1998 with majors in History and Dance and minors in Education and Drama. She graduated with Honors for her thesis “Living and Dying for the Red and Blue: The History and Evolution of Latino Youth Gangs”. In 2002, Lizette earned a Master’s degree from Harvard Graduate School of Education and she was awarded the Saint Mary’s College of California Kalmanovitz School of Education Award in Spring 2013. Her dissertation focused on the experiences of self-identified Latin@ students in Bay Area independent schools. Lizette has over twenty years of experience in education and has been a senior administrator in independent schools since 2006. She is excited to take her expertise in pedagogy, leadership, and equity as an independent consultant.

Dr. Dolan began her career with Teach for America/Multicultural Alliance and was awarded a Fulbright Memorial Fund grant to study in Japan. She served as Co-Chair of Northern California People of Color in Independent Schools (POCIS) and created curriculum for the National White Privilege Conference Youth Action Project for several years and continues to serve as an Advisor for both organizations. Lizette was also invited as a founding board member of Design School X and The Field Semester School. She regularly presents internationally, nationally, and locally on issues of teacher excellence, school innovation, best practices for recruitment and retention, and cultivating inclusive learning environments.